As “Spiritual Seekers” or “Seekers of the Truth” do we really want to ever want arrive at something? Is the point of Seeking to actually Find? I have noticed that it is very popular to state that you are a ‘seeker’ however, it is looked down upon to state that you have found something. Weird hey. Isn’t ‘seeking’ without the end goal of ‘finding’ equivalent to closing our eyes, shutting our ears and remaining lost? It seems to me that the post-modern world is running away-scared to death- of Truth. Stop saying that you are searching for Truth when you really have no intentions of finding it.
Lots of people will tell you that ‘faith is blind’ and that there is no way to prove God, or his existence. Okay, well since God is not in the world it is hard to test his existence. End of discussion... but wait a minute, what about Jesus Christ- the man in history who claimed to be God in the flesh. In order to understand this Jesus Christ, we must look to both his claims and His history. Since we already looked at his claims last time, lets investigate the Historical Jesus. Philosophy Professor Charles Anderson asserts that, “It cannot be stated too strongly that Christianity is an historical religion, and that it is so intimately tied to history that if the historical credibility of its sources were to be proven false, it would at once collapse as a possible claimant for our loyalty.”
What is this historical credibility then? Well there are four main historical elements that we must look at.
1) Jesus existed. He is documented both in the Gospels which date back to AD 70 (about 40 years after Jesus’s death) and also documented in Flavius Josephus’ The Antiquities of the Jews (AD 93), in Thallus’ works (AD 52) for example. Gary Habermas (Philosophy Professor at Liberty University) comments: “While some believe that we know almost nothing about Jesus from ancient, non-New Testament sources, this plainly is not the case. Not only are there many such sources, but Jesus is one of the persons of ancient history concerning whom we have a significant amount of quality data. He is one of the most-substantiated lives in ancient times”
2)
People believed his claims and his miracles. Not only did Jesus have followers convinced of his divinity and that he was the promised Messiah, but even his closest friends (the disciples) were convinced. What is even more crucial to understand was that these were not just any people group that believed him: these were first century Jews. First century Jews were taught to believe in only one true God that is separate from Earth. To the Jews, this is a big deal. If they were wrong about Jesus and about the incarnation, they knew that this was the ultimate sin.
3)
Hundreds confessed to seeing Jesus alive, resurrected from the dead. Ultimately the Christian faith is hinged upon this single ‘historical’ event. The apostle Paul admits how pointless Christianity would be if the Resurrection never happened: 1 Corinthians 15:14-16: "And if Christ has not been raised [from the dead], our preaching is useless and so is your faith. More than that, we are then found to be false witnesses about God, for we have testified about God that he raised Christ from the dead”.
4)
These same followers of Christ died for their faith. Pliny the Younger describes the persecution of the Christians in his letters to the emperor Trajan dated to AD 112. He describes the process: “The method I have observed towards those who have been denounced to me as Christians is this: I interrogated them whether they were in fact Christians; if they confessed it, I repeated the question twice, adding the threat of capital punishment; if they still persevered, I ordered them to be executed”. In his Annals (AD 116), Tacitus also confirms the persecution: “Therefore… Nero substituted as culprits, and punished with the utmost refinements of cruelty, a class of men, loathed for their vices, whom the crowd styled Christians. Christus, the founder of the name, had undergone the death penalty in the reign of Tiberius, by the sentence of the procurator Pontius Pilatus…”.
So, Jesus, his resurrection and the formation of the early Church are either True, or it is all a big hoax. Ultimately, it would require more faith to disprove the secular and Gospel accounts. *side note: for those who think that perhaps the Gospels were just lies that the disciples made up, we have to consider their intentions, their writing methods and the dates to which they are set in (being close enough to the crucifixion that many people would have proved these testimonies false). What kind of power would they have gained for creating a false Faith? Why would they have died for their hoax? Why did they write in the historical style rather than the style associated with fiction at the time? Why did they make reference to people as if to use them as eyewitnesses?
Let me ask you this: Are you a Spiritual Seeker who intends on actually finding the facts? Or are you a Spiritual Seeker who never plans on actually finding anything? Let’s not flatter ourselves and say that if there was enough evidence for Jesus and his claims, that we would wholeheartedly accept it. We all have our own biases in the case for Christ. The evidence is there. Let’s realize our own biases: Truth is too important to not seek it earnestly.
-Rachel S.
“You’re so proud of saying you’re a seeker
But why are you searching in the dark
You won’t find a thing until you soften your heart”
-Keith Green
For Further Reading:
- “Evidence for the Historical Jesus: A compelling Case for His Life and His Claims”- Josh McDowell and Bill Wilson
- “Annals”- Tacitus
- “The Antiquities of the Jews” –Flavius Josephus
- The Gospel accounts of Matthew, Mark, Luke, John
- “Jesus and the Eyewitnesses” Richard Bauckham
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